PEOPLE, LANGUAGES, AND EELIGIONS. 
33 
pean only in tlie snouts of swine, is not by any means 
a disfigurement to a pretty Coolie woman. The ring 
is generally of gold or brass, thin, and about as large 
as a half-crown, or sometimes a crown-piece in circum- 
ference ; that which strikes one as most displeasing to 
our taste, is the drop of the ear being so widely severed 
— two fingers can be easily passed througli the opening- 
made to retain the ear-ring. It is not, moreover, pleasant 
to see a woman’s teeth covered'with a juice precisely like 
blood ; the beetle-nut is chewed by the women as well as 
the men, and it is somewhat offensive to witness the 
blood-coloured teeth, and the blood-coloured saliva ex- 
pectorated. The Coolies brought to Trinidad are from 
all parts of India, of different complexions, habits, lan- 
guage and religion. 
When it was proposed to obtain labourers from India, 
two agents were sent, one to Calcutta, and one to 
kladras. The slightest knowledge of the inhabitants of 
HindoStan tells us that the people of the two Presi- 
dencies are distinct. The Bengalis speak Hindustani 
and Bengali, while the inhabitants of the Madras Presi- 
dency speak Tamil, a totally different language. Wlien 
these x^eople meet in Trinidad, it strikes one as some- 
what strange tliat they have to point to water and rice, 
and ask each other what they call it in their language. 
So totally different are. the languages, the Hindus- 
tani and the Tamil, that English has to become the 
medium of communication. The difference in the peo- 
ple is almost as great as the difference in the languages ; 
the Coolies from Calcutta proving valuable, steady 
labourers, while those from Madras are for tlie most 
part useless. This is accounted for by the fact, that 
those who embark from Calcutta have come from the 
interior, and have been used to the cultivation of rice 
or indicjo all their lives. Ho better labourers than these 
prove, can be desired. 
The Madras Coolies appear to be, witli few excep- 
tions, the scum and refuse of the city of iMadras — stray 
D 
